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Or, If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no record of it, did it really happen?

Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic recently published the piece “Why Facebook and Google’s Concept of ‘Real Names’ Is Revolutionary” in which he presented what may be a novel argument in the debate over real name policies on the internet by showing that real name policies affecting everyone, not just disparate minority populations.

While real name policies do seem to make sense for probably 90% of users (they protect us from trolling and spam accounts, they help us to make sure that we know the people with whom we’re connecting), they’re a real (obvious) problem for a minority of people. Unfortunately, in the case of the real name debate, the poster child for the minority population is a teenager questioning his sexuality… not someone that the powers that be want to rally behind. (Off base fears about gay recruiting, egads!) Continue reading →

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The Best of Maggie (Not Margaret)

Here are two topics that I’ve been following coming together in a creepy, creepy way: social automation and social network profiles that remain after death. I’ve been thinking about social media automation for a while now as it’s been cropping up more and more in discussions of personal branding and social media marketing. Although automated […]

The era of the big box bookstore is coming to an end and I, for one, am saddened by this. Yes, I know they were big, bad corporate giants that came in and destroyed neighborhood bookstores and coffee shops, ending third places and stifling locally-owned businesses in many communities. All that’s true – and awful. […]

In honor of the release of HP 7.5 this weekend, I bring you an excerpt of my thesis, “The Branding of Harry Potter: How Fanfiction is Challenging Concepts of Owner and Author”. Before jumping in, here’s what you need to know: I love Harry Potter and I love fanfiction; not in the way that I […]

Today SocialTimes has an article about Twitter, hyper-text, and the evolution of storytelling (Are Twitter Storytellers the Heroes of a New Postmodernism?). It’s written by Amanda Cosco who is proving to be my social media soul mate – recently she’s written articles on foodies, citizen journalists, Lady Gaga, and super hot nerds. Ms. Cosco discusses […]

A few days ago, Chris Sullivan of MyNorthwest.com wrote an article called “The art of storytelling in a world of technology”. He asked if you can tell a story over Twitter and wondered if the limitations of the medium limited the message. He quoted professional storyteller Anne Rutherford as saying “Whatever their age, whatever their […]